Sunday, April 22, 2012

Kandel (1929 - ) Nobel Prize winning learning theorist

With a
Nobel Prize (with Arvid Carlsson & Paul Greengard) for
his work on learning and memory, Eric Kandel’s is a towering figure in the
science of learning. Yet he is barely known among learning professionals. His interest
in memory came from an interest in psychoanalysis but also reflection on his
own experiences as a child in Vienna and his escape from the Nazis in 1939. But
it was solid science and laboratory work in the US, and the realisation that
memory does not reside in neurons but in the reconfiguration of their connections
that drove him forward.

Learning
is memory

Learning,
for Kandel, is the ability to acquire new ideas from experience and retain them
as memories (a simple fact often overlooked). His insight was to first
recognise that the functional and biochemical features of nerves and synapses
in snails, worms and flies are not substantially different from mammals and humans.
His work on giant marine snails uncovered not only the physiological but
molecular pathways in short-term memory but also storage in long-term memory
through spaced practice.

Initially,
he focused on implicit (procedural) memories such as habituation, sensitisation
and classical conditioning skills and habits, but then moved into explicit (declarative)
facts and events, where he made further discoveries about the molecular
mechanisms in memory. He then moved on to the
identification of memory at the molecular level showing that long-terms memory
used protein synthesis, namely chemical change in the process of memorisation,
unlike short-term memory. Short term memory storage modifies existing proteins and alters existing synaptic
connections. Long-term storage involves gene activation, the creation of new
protein and new synaptic connections.Kandel therefore
found the link between experience and biology. Learning could now be seen as
experience captured as cellular change.

Relevance
to learning

Even
without Kandel's chemical and physiological confirmation, we have an abundance
of psychological evidence showing that the distinction between short and
long-term memory is clear. Why then is it so often ignored? If this seems a little
too abstract consider how hooked education and training is on short-term memory
experiences and assessment. We know how deficient short-term memory is because
there is no fundamental chemical and physiological change, whereas long-term
memory does involve chemical and physiological change. A simple change in focus
away from short-term, once-only, event based teaching would radically alter
almost everything in education and training. These discoveries also open up the
possibility, not only of enhancing and curing disorders such as Alzheimer’s
disease, but understanding how learning actually works, leading to significant
improvements in practice.

E-learning

Now
that we have strong physiological, cellular and molecular evidence for the
difference between short and long term memory, we can apply technology to
enhancing learning through spaced practice. At a very basic level, recording
all lectures for repeated access to the content by students is just one of many
changes one could implement in education. Improving attention, feedback and
reinforcement to improve the move from short to long term memory by avoiding
cognitive overload, eith better elaboration and deeper processing is surely
what technology promises to deliver.

Conclusion

Kandel has identified some of the
chemical pathways of memory and therefore learning, for both short and
long-term memory. This is important as an understanding of the physiological
mechanisms in memory may hold answers to questions of improving memory and
learning.In practice, the very basic lessons from memory
theory are ignored in education and training. Largely, we have
sheep-dip courses, cognitive overload, poor encoding, too much emphasis on
facts, little in the way of spaced practice and cramming leading to temporary
success in summative assessment. The net result is little, long-term retention
and application. We teach and train to forget.

Bibliography

Kandel, E. R. (2006).In search of memory: The emergence of a
new science of mind. New York: W.W.
Norton & Co

Kandel, E. R. (2012).The
age of insight: The quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain
: from Vienna 1900 to the present. New York: Random House

1 Comments:

I see your point about recording lectures, since that would at least make it possible to review the original. However, I've seen a great deal of mindless recording--one galumphing stream of audio or video with no way to search, no chunking, no tags, no organization. This is essentially the "back to the salt mine" approach, but since it's cheap and easy, one that many will adopt.

As you suggest, technology can help to overcome that. I've seen tools in which slides are synched to the audio, so you can click through the slides and pick up at a relevant point (assuming the speaker has considered relevance). At least some TED talks include a interactive transcript, making it even easier to find a particular segment of a larger piece.